


Things You Don't Tell the Therapist

by frankiesin



Series: Ghost Towns [8]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, POV Second Person, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 23:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18020513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: Ryan keeps a lot to herself.(set in the Ghost Towns universe)





	Things You Don't Tell the Therapist

**Author's Note:**

> This is another thing I found while going through Google Docs. It's got some mild spoilers for Ghost Towns, but it's mostly a character study of Ryan.

You’re seven years old. The world is small. Your parents are back in the bedroom, screaming. Someone throws a lamp. You don’t know who it is. You stop moving. Your mother comes out and reminds her how you ruined her life. She leaves. She’s not coming back. You are now stuck here with your father and no one else.

 

You are eight years old. You don’t belong with the other boys at recess. They’re violent. They laugh when you shrink away from them. Everyone tells you to go out and get your feet dirty. That’s what boys do. You think to yourself that you’re not a good boy. You’ve never been a good boy. Your father throws you out for saying so.

 

You are nine years old. You are sitting in a church at a funeral for someone you’re supposed to know. Your father is drunk. The boy across the pew makes eye contact with you. He doesn’t look away. After the funeral, you find each other in the bathroom and share a slice of cornbread. It’s the women’s bathroom. He doesn’t ask why.

 

You are ten years old. Spencer, the boy from the funeral, is a year younger. He takes the first punch when the boys on the playground start calling you fags. You wish you were stronger, but your arms are already painted over in bruises from your father. Spencer is angry. He comes out of the fight with blood where one of his teeth should be. You get him a napkin and declare him your friend.

 

You are eleven years old. Your hair touches your shoulders for the first time because your father can’t afford haircuts anymore. He doesn’t have a job. All of the money is turning into empty bottles on the floor. Everything smells bad. You wish you had a room, just to get away from it all. Instead, you have a library, and you’re there until the doors close.

 

You are twelve years old. There are seven books hidden under your house. They’re yours now. They used to belong to the library, but you fell in love and couldn’t let go. Spencer knows about them. Spencer's the only one who knows anything about you. You think you’d love him, but you know he couldn’t love you back.

 

You are thirteen years old. You tell Spencer that you’re a girl, and he tells you he’s thought about kissing a boy in your grade. You kiss the boy instead, and then he beats your face in. Spencer then beats his face in. You don’t go to the hospital. You stay with Spencer after school so that he’s not alone during his suspension.

 

You are fourteen years old. You find a dress in the boutique two towns over and buy it. You say it’s for a sister. You’re a liar. Spencer thinks it looks good, but Spencer is dating a boy now and so you can’t wear it. He’s the only one who would let you. The dress stays in its package under the house, along with your fifteen books.

 

You are fifteen years old. Spencer's parents found out about the boy. The boy is now dead. Spencer is now at a camp. He doesn’t write to you. He’s not allowed to write to you, because you’re a bad influence and the reason he has homosexual tendencies. You are alone again. You steal ten more books to numb the feeling.

 

You are sixteen years old. Your father finds the dress. He pulls you by your hair and throws you around like a toy. Your hair is gone again. Your dress is burned to ashes. You can’t fit it anymore, but it still hurts. Spencer is back, but he’s different. Angrier. Less likely to punch someone and more likely to hurt himself. You don’t tell him about your father.

 

You are seventeen years old. Spencer points out your black eye. You point out the bandages covering his wrists. Neither of you talk about it again. Instead, you talk about running away. There’s nowhere to go for you two, but you have to leave. You know you will be killed if you stay, and you fear Spencer will kill himself.

 

You are eighteen years old. Your father is coming at you with a baseball bat. You don’t know where he got it. There’s a broken bottle on the ground. You hit him first. You don’t stop. The house doesn’t smell like vomit and alcohol. It smells like blood. You call Spencer and he helps you get rid of everything.

 

You are nineteen years old. You and Spencer live out of a truck and hotel rooms. You kiss him first. He kisses back. Liking boys had never stopped him from also liking girls. You cry a lot. You still feel stuck in your home. Spencer's cuts start to heal, but your bruises seem to last forever. You wonder when your recovery will come.

 

You are twenty years old. You have friends now. Spencer jumps in front of a bullet to save them and you lose him. And then you find him again, healed, back home, looking for someone to hurt. He never healed. You never healed. You wonder if it’s possible to cover up a wound as big as a stolen childhood.

 

You are twenty one years old. You’ve forgotten where you came from and the name you were assigned at birth. You are you. No one else. You have no past, no present, only future. Spencer is beside you in the waiting room, as he always will be. He’s holding your hand. You squeeze his, he squeezes back. This is not the end.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!


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